Brawn's statements are subtley inconsistent with Wolff's. Wolff would not really be drawn on the subject of Lowe but answered questions in a way that suggested he wasn't in consideration for the team yet (the whole "I haven't assessed things yet or had discussions"). Brawn meanwhile is indicating that Lowe is essentially lined up in the even that he does leave.

My deduction from this is that Brawn is indeed leaving. Bild broke the story before it was meant to be known and have presented it extremely negatively - that Brawn was being sacked/replaced by Lowe. Now Mercedes are scrambling to paint things differently in terms of Brawn's departure. Soonish we'll be told that Brawn has decided to leave and Lowe is taking his place.

Brawn was Team Principal when they came there. I've made the assumption that he would have had at least some involvement in who was hired to work on stuff relevant to the race team.

The way I have heard it is that it was all done above the team. The guys Honda took on had long links with the company.

If we look at it that way then that means that a lot of the decisions that are the domain of Team Principal were being made by the Board, which limits the ability to which Brawn can be effective in his role, which means we can't really make a judgement on his effectiveness as Team Principal.

Well by following your logic we can basically null all of his achievements as a technical director at Ferrari and Benetton. It's not that other TPs are given total freedom. They aren't given, there is always someone above them (Williams is special case). You make assumption that Mercedes board is more intrusive than other boards. Keep in mind that Brawn owns some significant stake in team and his man (Fry) is CEO.

Well by following your logic we can basically null all of his achievements as a technical director at Ferrari and Benetton. It's not that other TPs are given total freedom. They aren't given, there is always someone above them (Williams is special case). You make assumption that Mercedes board is more intrusive than other boards. Keep in mind that Brawn owns some significant stake in team and his man (Fry) is CEO.

Wrong - Ross Brawn and Nick Fry sold their remaining shares to Mercedes in February 2011.

Brawn was Team Principal when they came there. I've made the assumption that he would have had at least some involvement in who was hired to work on stuff relevant to the race team.

The way I have heard it is that it was all done above the team. The guys Honda took on had long links with the company.

If we look at it that way then that means that a lot of the decisions that are the domain of Team Principal were being made by the Board, which limits the ability to which Brawn can be effective in his role, which means we can't really make a judgement on his effectiveness as Team Principal.

Well by following your logic we can basically null all of his achievements as a technical director at Ferrari and Benetton. It's not that other TPs are given total freedom. They aren't given, there is always someone above them (Williams is special case). You make assumption that Mercedes board is more intrusive than other boards. Keep in mind that Brawn owns some significant stake in team and his man (Fry) is CEO.

Brawn did own a stake in the team, but that was sold.

I'm not taking the position that other teams have no interference; I'm talking about the extent of interference. What I'm saying is that the situation at Ferrari when Brawn was there allowed greater freedom for the individuals in charge of the various areas to make decisions and have control when compared to teams like Honda and Toyota and that Mercedes may be more along the lines of the latter two rather than the former. I'm basing my comments on what was discussed and assessed over several years with respect to the operation of Ferrari, Honda and Toyota and surmising that based on what I'm read Mercedes may be similar to the latter.

The success of any team depends on everybody involved, but the higher up in the organisation a person is the more the responsibility falls to them.

I just can't see Lowe in the team principal role, and I don't think I'd want him there in that capacity given Hamilton has just left McLaren for a fresh start. It would be different if Brawn stayed as team principal and Lowe came in as technical director, but it sounds like a straight swap is what's on the table. If Mercedes is desperate for new technical brainpower I think I'd prefer Allison in as technical director with Brawn remaining team principal. That's if they don't have enough brainpower already. It seems like most people believe Allison is of an altogether higher pedigree to Mercedes' current technical directors, though I don't know what that's based on.

In any case, I hope we find out where we stand in the next few days.

_________________The fight is won or lost far away from witnesses - behind the lines, in the gym, and out there on the road, long before I dance under those lights

Brawn was Team Principal when they came there. I've made the assumption that he would have had at least some involvement in who was hired to work on stuff relevant to the race team.

The way I have heard it is that it was all done above the team. The guys Honda took on had long links with the company.

If we look at it that way then that means that a lot of the decisions that are the domain of Team Principal were being made by the Board, which limits the ability to which Brawn can be effective in his role, which means we can't really make a judgement on his effectiveness as Team Principal.

Well by following your logic we can basically null all of his achievements as a technical director at Ferrari and Benetton. It's not that other TPs are given total freedom. They aren't given, there is always someone above them (Williams is special case). You make assumption that Mercedes board is more intrusive than other boards. Keep in mind that Brawn owns some significant stake in team and his man (Fry) is CEO.

Brawn did own a stake in the team, but that was sold.

I'm not taking the position that other teams have no interference; I'm talking about the extent of interference. What I'm saying is that the situation at Ferrari when Brawn was there allowed greater freedom for the individuals in charge of the various areas to make decisions and have control when compared to teams like Honda and Toyota and that Mercedes may be more along the lines of the latter two rather than the former. I'm basing my comments on what was discussed and assessed over several years with respect to the operation of Ferrari, Honda and Toyota and surmising that based on what I'm read Mercedes may be similar to the latter.

The success of any team depends on everybody involved, but the higher up in the organisation a person is the more the responsibility falls to them.

OK I was wrong about Brawn as stakeholder, but how exactly Ferrari was different than Mercedes? Maybe Ferrari had better TP than Brawn? Also isn't TP responsibility to operate under given circumstances? It's not that he needed to contact board every time Nico or Schumacher were set to do a pit stop etc and Mercedes surely was lacking in that area.

Also aren't you suggesting that Honda built titles winning BGP001, not Brawn?

OK I was wrong about Brawn as stakeholder, but how exactly Ferrari was different than Mercedes? Maybe Ferrari had better TP than Brawn? Also isn't TP responsibility to operate under given circumstances? It's not that he needed to contact board every time Nico or Schumacher were set to do a pit stop etc and Mercedes surely was lacking in that area.

Also aren't you suggesting that Honda built titles winning BGP001, not Brawn?

I wasn't saying that Brawn was either a good or a bad Team Principal. My comments were about the fact that the success/failure of the team may have been impacted by the structural arrangement and that this may have been preventative to Brawn managing things the way he would have liked which makes it difficult to make a proper judgement. There were a number of comments in the thread about him not being a good Team Principal for various reasons and I was presenting the alternative to that.

My comparison to Ferrari was based on the fact that it was often said that a crucial part of the success of the Todt-Brawn-Schumacher period was that Todt put the right people in the right places and gave them the freedom to do what they needed decision-wise. He had the backing of Montezemolo to do this. Just to be clear, I wasn't crediting Brawn with that arrangement because Todt was Team Principal then, but using it to highlight a system that works and pointing out that Brawn was part of that structural arrangement and would have known that it worked and I suggested it would have been surprising if he took a different approach himself.

It's my personal opinion based on what I've read that Mercedes has more parent company interference. With other teams in the past this sort of interference has been highlighted as a reason for their lack of success.

My comments weren't really related to the race weekend but to the overall progress of the team. IMO it's harder to allocate responsibility for individual things and my assessment is therefore based on the overall picture. Brawn was Team Principal when Honda built the billion-dollar car so I give him some - not all - but some credit for that. It was also said at the time that Honda had allowed Brawn more independence than they had with Team Principals in the past, so I think the parent company can be slightly more divorced from decisions surrounding that car.

However I think the same can said about race weekends - that they weren't necessarily as bad as it appeared. Their pitstops in 2010 were IIRC on average the fastest in the pitlane. While some of their strategies appeared questionable there was also the other side of the equation was that they were prepared to take risks to get a better result. I have often wondered if it was the drivers who were unable to pull off the strategies (which is a difficult thing for me to say given I am an enormous Schumacher fan). Brawn also showed he had lost none of his nounce when he backed Schumacher's move at Monaco on Alonso when the Safety Car went in, which although the stewards ultimately decided was illegal, had merit given green flags were waving and had the stewards accepted it Schumacher and Brawn would have been lauded.

True, but the biggest irony is that, so far, McLaren- as a customer team,- managed better results than the official Mercedes works team. Try to explain that irony in a board of directors meeting at Stuttgart; they'll be utterly delighted to hear it, I bet. So delighted they'll probably give the lucky spokesman a free ride to the gate.

Of course. merc as it stands have been a failure with their team hence this current shakeup.

Personally I think lowe should be tech director (or whatever the title is at merc for leading the technical design). But it seems he has ambitions and wants to move on from that role now. I am not convinced shoving him in the TP chair is the right thing, but who knows it might prove successful.